May 10th of next month marks the sesquicentennial of
the joining of the Central Pacific Railroad and the Union Pacific Railroad at
Promontory Point, often known as the Golden Spike ceremony. Over the course of
several blog posts, I hope to share bits and pieces of this endeavor. I do have
a vested interest in the topic for several reasons. For one, my
great-grandfather worked for the Union Pacific Railroad as it cut its way
through Echo Canyon in Utah. Also, the history of the Central Pacific Railroad
plays a big role in the early history of California, my adopted state.
The
First Transcontinental Railroad,
known originally as the "Pacific
Railroad" and later as the “Overland Route," was a 1,912-mile
(3,077 km) continuous railroad line constructed between 1863 and 1869 that
connected the existing eastern U.S. rail network at Omaha, Nebraska/Council
Bluffs, Iowa with the Pacific coast at the Oakland Long Wharf on San Francisco
Bay. The rail line was built by three private companies over public lands
provided by extensive US land grants. Construction was financed by both state
and US government subsidy bonds as well as by company issued mortgage bonds.
The Western Pacific Railroad Company built 132 mi (212 km) of track
from Oakland/Alameda to Sacramento, California. The Central Pacific Railroad
Company of California (CPRR) constructed 690 mi (1,110 km) eastward
from Sacramento to Promontory Summit, Utah Territory. The Union Pacific built
1,085 mi (1,746 km) from the road's eastern terminus at Council
Bluffs near Omaha, Nebraska westward to Promontory Summit.
The
railroad opened for through traffic on May 10, 1869 when CPRR President Leland
Stanford ceremonially drove the gold "Last Spike. " which was later
often called the "Golden Spike," with a silver hammer at Promontory
Summit.
Historian
Stephen E. Ambrose wrote, “Next to winning the Civil War and abolishing
slavery, building the first transcontinental railroad from Omaha, Nebraska, to
Sacramento, California, was the greatest achievement of the American people in
the nineteenth century….”1
The completion of this railroad proved to be a
monumental feat that revolutionized the settlement and economy of the American
West. Where before, my pioneer ancestors traveled for months across the plains
to reach their destination, the trip on the railroad from New York to San
Francisco could be made in seven days. It used to cost about $1,000 (value of
that time) to travel by wagon and ox team from New York to San Francisco. Once
the Transcontinental Railroad was completed, the cost of a rail ticket was
$150.00 for first class and $70 for third, or emigrant, class (hard, narrow
benches set close together). Freight rates by railroad were far less than for
oxen- or horse-driven wagons, sailboats or steamships. Cross country mail that
once cost dollars per ounce and took months to reach its destination now cost
pennies and was delivered in a matter of days.
I will end with this quote printed in the Deseret News, the primary newspaper of
Salt Lake City, the largest and only city of any size between the Missouri and
California:
“The last tie has been laid, the last
rail is placed in position, and the last spike is driven, which binds the
Atlantic and Pacific oceans with an iron band. The electric flash has borne the
tidings to the world, and it now devolves upon us, the favored eye-witnesses of
the monumental feat, to enter our record of the facts…. Never before has this
continent disclosed anything bearing comparison with it. The massive oaken-hued
trains of the Central Pacific lie upon their iron path, confronted by the
elegant coaches of the Union pacific.
“Thousands of throbbing hearts
impulsively beat to the motion of the trains at the front locomotives of each
company led on majestically up to the very verge of the narrow break between
the lines where, in a few moments, was to be consummated the nuptial rites
uniting the gorgeous East and the imperial West with the indissoluble seal of
inter-oceanic commerce.”2
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| Golden Spike Ceremony Recreation - Ctsy Hyrum K. Wright |
Footnotes:
1.
Taken from the Stephen B. Ambrose, Nothing Like It in the World (New
York: Simon & Schuster, 2000), 369-70. Reprinted in Museum Memories,
Volume 1 (Salt Lake City, Utah: International Daughters of Utah Pioneers,
2009), pg. 393-95.
2.
Taken from the Deseret News, May 19, 1869, 169; Kate B. Carter, Our
Pioneer Heritage (Salt Lake City: Daughters of Utah Pioneers, 1969),
12:285. Reprinted in Museum Memories, Volume 1 (Salt Lake City, Utah:
International Daughters of Utah Pioneers, 2009), pg. 393.
Sources:
Museum
Memories, Volume 1
(Salt Lake City, Utah: International Daughters of Utah Pioneers, 2009)
Wikipedia
(First published in Cowboy Kisses blog dated April 26, 2019)
Ogden Union Station and the Sesquicentennial of the Transcontinental Railroad
In less than two weeks, May 10, 2019 marks the sesquicentennial of the joining of the Union Pacific Railroad and the Central Pacific Railroad at Promontory Summit north of the Great Salt Lake in Utah. It is sometimes known as the Golden Spike, or Last Spike, ceremony. I will be featuring details of the first transcontinental railroad in my next few blog posts.
 |
| Locomotive in from the Ogden, Utah, Union Station |
In 2014, I went on vacation for the better part of three weeks. No writing or blogging, only sight-seeing and picture-taking. I lost 200-400 images from my camera, but between my camera and cell phone I still saved 1,800 plus images to my computer. The ones I have about the joining of the Transcontinental Railroad at Promontory Summit come not from the site itself -- those were among the lost -- but from the museum that is part of the Union Station museum in Ogden, Utah.
The name Union Station was commonly given to train stations where tracks and facilities were shared by two or more railway companies. The station is currently home to the Utah State Railroad Museum.
 |
| Ogden Union Station today |
 |
| Mural depicting the building of the Central Pacific Railroad |
On March 8, 1869, the Union Pacific came
to Ogden on its way to Promontory Summit to meet the Central Pacific, thus
completing the transcontinental rail line. Four cities near this location, Corrine,
Promontory, Uintah, and Ogden, competed with each other for the opportunity to
house the train station that would be the junction for railroad travel in the
Intermountain West.
 |
| Mural depicting the building of the Union Pacific Railroad |
Promontory and Uintah lacked the necessary resources to
house the Station. Corinne and Ogden competed for many years for the
"Junction City" title, until Brigham Young donated several hundred
acres of land to the two railroads on the condition that they build the yards
and station in west Ogden.
 |
| Interior of Ogden Union Station lobby |
 |
| The first train station in Odgen-from the Ogden Union Station display |
 |
| Old Rio Grande Caboose in front of Ogden Union Station |
This small building was also the facility
for the narrow gauge Utah Central Railroad (later Oregon Short Line) and the
narrow gauge Rio Grande Western (later Denver & Rio Grande Western). Local
newspapers complained about, among other things, the quarter mile of wood
boardwalk required to traverse the swampy ground to reach the station. In
response to these worries the Union Pacific and Central Pacific organized the
jointly-owned Ogden Union Railway & Depot Co. (OUR&D) to oversee the
construction and management of a new Union Station.
 |
| 1891 Drawing of Ogden Union Railway Station |
A new structure,
considerably larger than the old and constructed of brick, was built, and dedicated on December 31 in 1889. The dedication attracted around
6,000 people. It served the community for several decades. It was designed in the Romanesque
Revival style, with a large clock tower in the center. This building, in
addition to serving the needs of the railroad, also contained 33 hotel rooms as
well as a restaurant, barbershop, and other conveniences for the enjoyment of
the traveler.
This station included 33 hotel rooms, a restaurant and even a barbershop. This station worked well for over three decades. In 1920, some $11,000 was spent re-papering, painting, and roofing the building. An underground walkway to separate the tracks to the west was also built. On February 13, 1923, one of the hotel rooms caught fire and quickly spread to the rest of the station. No one was killed, or injured, but the Station had to be gutted, with only fragile walls and the clock left standing. Since the station walls had not been leveled, the Ogden Union Railway & Depot Company, which owned the building, thought they could just restore what was there before including the clock tower. But soon after a stone fell off the clock tower and instantly killed a railroad clerk. This accident, as well as pleading from City officials for a new building prompted railroad officials to start over with a new design.
Some of the images and information were first published on my own Trails & Rails blog under Robyn Echols. Zina Abbott is my pen name for writing American historical romance.
To learn more about the series, The Widows of Wildcat Ridge, and the coming series by many of the same favorite authors, plus some new favorite authors, please join the reader group. CLICK HERE.
Sources:
https://ogdencity.com/1336/History-of-the-Union-Station
Wikipedia
(First posted on Sweethearts of the West blog April 30, 2019)
Start of the Transcontinental Railroad
Author’s Note:
May 10, 1869 is the sesquicentennial of the Golden Spike ceremony joining the
Central Pacific Railroad and the Union Pacific Railroad to create the
Transcontinental Railroad. For the next few months, across all the blogs for
which I write, I will share pieces of this railroad’s history. It has special
meaning for me since one of my ancestors worked on this railroad once it
reached Utah. All of these blog posts will eventually be gathered on a page in
my own Trails and Rails blog.
The First Transcontinental Railroad (known originally
as the "Pacific Railroad" and later as the "Overland
Route") was a 1,912-mile continuous railroad line constructed between 1863
and 1869 that connected the existing eastern U.S. rail network at Omaha,
Nebraska/Council Bluffs, Iowa with the Pacific coast at the Oakland Long Wharf
on San Francisco Bay. The rail line was built by three private companies over
public lands provided by extensive US land grants. Construction was financed by
both state and US government subsidy bonds as well as by company issued
mortgage bonds.
First Support for a Transcontinental Railroad
Building a railroad line that connected the United States coast-to-coast was advocated in 1832 when Dr. Hartwell Carver published an article in the New York Courier & Enquirer advocating building a transcontinental railroad from Lake Michigan to Oregon.
In 1832, an article
in the Ann Arbor Emigrant in Michigan, called for a railroad that would
span the continent from New York City to Oregon by way of the Platte River
Valley--essentially the route that was eventually completed. It was an audacious
concept because at that time the Oregon Territory was under British rule, and
California belonged to Mexico. A great swell of support for this bold idea grew
during the following three decades.
In 1847, Dr. Carver submitted to the U.S. Congress a "Proposal for a Charter to Build a Railroad from Lake Michigan to the Pacific Ocean", seeking a congressional charter to support his idea.
Asa Whitney Advocates for a Rail Trade Route
Asa Whitney, an
obscure New England merchant, was inspired by the possibilities of commerce
across the Pacific. He
was one of the first backers of an American transcontinental railway. A trip to
China in 1842-44 impressed upon Whitney the need for a transcontinental
railroad from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
 |
| Asa Whitney |
When Whitney returned to the United States in 1844, he realized the benefits from such an undertaking, and spent a great deal of money trying to get the Congress to take up the project. In 1849, he published A Project for a Railroad to the Pacific. For years he continued to write revised memorials and take expeditions through what was then known as Indian Territory to support his cause.
He foresaw a trade
link connecting the eastern half of America with its West Coast. Whitney wrote
up a plan of action, “A railroad from Lake Michigan to the Pacific” to be built
privately with incentives: grants of government land, and railroad-issued,
government-backed bonds.
Brigham Young Promotes the Railroad
There is evidence
from pioneer diaries that Brigham Young, leader of the members of the Church of
Latter-day Saints (Called Mormons by their enemies, but called themselves
Saints after the pattern found in the New Testament.) while crossing the plains
in 1847 and 1848, predicted that a railroad would be built along the Emigrant
Trail. He remarked that if the nation did not build it, the Utah Pioneers would,
as soon as Utah was granted statehood.
 |
| Brigham Young, 1850 by Marsina Cannon |
In 1848 The
Millennial Star printed a report of two projected railway routes from
Council Bluffs to the Pacific Ocean, as described by Asa Whitney. He noted that
the proposed railroad was “fraught with interest to the Saints. It will not
only pass near their locality but ultimately facilitate the Gathering and
lessen the expense of the same. It will open a fresh market for the surplus
produce of the saints and furnish employment to laborers and artisans. If it is
accomplished, it will constitute a literal highway for the ransom of the Lord.
In two or three days, a journey from the Bluffs to Salt Lake may be
accomplished, which now occupies many months.”
Utahns were among the
first to submit a proposal to Congress promoting a transcontinental railroad.
At the first session of the Utah Territorial Legislature in 1851-52, memorials
petitioning Congress for a national Central Railroad were adopted. In a letter
to Congress in December 1853, Brigham Young wrote, “Pass where it will, we
cannot fail to be benefited by it.” Utah settlers gathered in mass in Salt Lake
City on January 31, 1854, and made a grand demonstration in favor of the
Pacific Railroad.
Brigham Young was one of the very
first to subscribe to Union Pacific stock.
Starting the Process
The Transcontinental
Railroad would have been impossible without the significant improvements made
by American engineering experts between 1830 and 1850. They invented the
swiveling truck which allowed engines to negotiate turns easily. Equalizing
beams spread the weight of the engine to three of the four driving Wheels
keeping, keeping the train from derailing on rough tracks. Cowcatchers, T
rails, and better lanterns and brakes, were among the improvements. And the
problem of ascending steep grades was solved by the invention of the switchback.
Congress agreed to support the idea. Under the direction of the Department of War, the Pacific Railroad Surveys were conducted from 1853 through 1855. These included an extensive series of expeditions of the American West seeking possible routes. A report on the explorations described alternative routes and included an immense amount of information about the American West, covering at least 400,000 sq mi (1,000,000 km2). It included the region's natural history and illustrations of reptiles, amphibians, birds, and mammals.
The report failed however to include detailed topographic maps of potential routes needed to estimate the feasibility, cost and select the best route. The survey was detailed enough to determine that the best southern route lay south of the Gila River boundary with Mexico in mostly vacant desert, through the future territories of Arizona and New Mexico. This in part motivated the United States to complete the Gadsden Purchase.
In 1856 the Select Committee on the Pacific Railroad and Telegraph of the US
House of Representatives published a report recommending support for a proposed Pacific railroad bill:
The necessity that now exists for constructing lines of railroad and telegraphic communication between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of this continent is no longer a question for argument; it is conceded by every one. In order to maintain our present position on the Pacific, we must have some more speedy and direct means of intercourse than is at present afforded by the route through the possessions of a foreign power.
Possible
routes
The U.S. Congress was strongly divided on where the eastern terminus of the railroad should be—in a southern or northern city. Three routes were considered:
 |
| The possible routes for the Pacific Railroad - ctsy American-historians.org |
- A northern route roughly along the Missouri River through present-day northern Montana to Oregon Territory. This was considered impractical due to the rough terrain and extensive winter snows.
- A central route following the Platte River in Nebraska through to the South Pass in Wyoming, following most of the Oregon Trail. Snow on this route remained a concern.
- A southern route across Texas, New Mexico Territory, the Sonora desert, connecting to Los Angeles, California. Surveyors found during an 1848 survey that the best route lay south of the border between the United States and Mexico. This was resolved by the Gadsden Purchase in 1853.
When the Civil War
removed the Southerners from the Congressional debate over the route, the central route was chosen. It was
immediately obvious that the western terminus should be Sacramento. In California the
"Big Four", Huntington, Hopkins, Crocker, and Stanford, formed the
Central Pacific Railroad with their own capital and received government
approval to build the rails Eastward from Sacramento. However, the United
States government had not clearly determined the railroad meeting point and
each company raced to construct as many miles of track as possible to reap the
benefits of land grants and government-backed bonds.
The promoters seized a great “entrepreneurial opportunity”. The
newly-formed Union Pacific Railroad won the entitlement to build westward from
the Missouri River. However,
there were differences of opinion about
the eastern terminus. Three locations along 250 miles (400 km) of Missouri
River were considered:
 |
| 1880s Railroad maps showing alternate cities for Transcontinental Railroad - Ctsy US History.org |
- St. Joseph, Missouri, accessed via the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad.
- Kansas City, Kansas / Leavenworth, Kansas accessed via the Leavenworth, Pawnee and Western Railroad, controlled by Thomas Ewing Jr. and later by John C. Fremont.
- Council Bluffs, Iowa / Omaha, Nebraska, accessed via an extension of Union Pacific financier Thomas C. Durant's proposed Mississippi and Missouri Railroad and the new Union Pacific Railroad, also controlled by Durant.
Council Bluffs had several advantages: It was well north of the Civil War fighting in Missouri; it was the shortest route to South Pass in the Rockies in Wyoming; and it would follow a fertile river that would encourage settlement. Durant had hired the future president Abraham Lincoln in 1857 when he was an attorney to represent him in a business matter about a bridge over the Missouri. Now Lincoln was responsible for choosing the eastern terminus, and he relied on Durant's counsel. Durant advocated for Omaha, which was chosen.
The Pacific Railway act of 1862 became
a reality
The House of
Representatives voted for the line on May 6, 1862, and the Senate on June 20.
Lincoln signed it into law on July 1. Two companies were hired -- the Central
Pacific would build from the west and the Union Pacific from the east.
Besides land grants along the right-of-way, each railroad was paid $16,000 per mile ($9,940/km) that was built over an easy grade, $32,000 per mile ($19,880/km) in the high plains, and $48,000 per mile ($29,830/km) in the mountains. These terms encouraged the companies to construct many extra miles of track, direct the line toward property they owned, and in many other ways exploit the poorly written law to their benefit.
Besides land grants along the right-of-way, each railroad was paid $16,000 per mile ($9,940/km) that was built over an easy grade, $32,000 per mile ($19,880/km) in the high plains, and $48,000 per mile ($29,830/km) in the mountains. These terms encouraged the companies to construct many extra miles of track, direct the line toward property they owned, and in many other ways exploit the poorly written law to their benefit.
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| Irish Railroad Workers |
Investors could readily
see that a completed railroad across the country would hasten the settlement of
the Western lands and that railroad companies could monopolistically control
the rates for freight and passengers. The early Union Pacific officials had an
even greater view. They pontificated, “The profit is not in operating the
railroad but in building it.” The entire enterprise attracted dreamers,
scammers, and influence peddlers, giving rise to all manner of skimming, side
deals, and corner-cutting.
 |
| Chinese Railroad Workers |
The railroads created
thousands of new jobs and brought thousands of new inhabitants to the West. The
entire nation was changed in ways that could not have been imagined.
My most recent book, Virginia’s Vocation, is now available on Amazon. In
1859, when Virginia, escorted by her older brother, Jefferson, travel from
Missouri to Ohio, the train that had almost reached St. Joseph, Missouri was
the most westerly point served by a railroad east of the Missouri River. This
was a mere decade before the east and west were joined by the Transcontinental
Railroad. To read the book description and access the purchase link, please CLICK HERE.
Sources:
Museum
Memories, Volume 1 (Salt Lake City, Utah: International
Daughters of Utah Pioneers, 2009), Pgs. 396-98.
Miller, Eugene Arundel; Railroad
1869 Along the Historic Union Pacific in Utah to Promontory; (Mill Valley,
California: Antelope Press, 2012) Pgs. 1-2
http://cprr.org/Museum/Stewart-Iron_Trail.html
http://www.tcrr.com/
Wikipedia
(First posted on Sweet Americana Sweethearts blog on May 13, 2019)
(First posted on Sweet Americana Sweethearts blog on May 13, 2019)
T. D. Judah & The Big Four
This is part of an ongoing series about the
first Transcontinental Railroad which will be shared on three blogs for which I
post, and will eventually all end up on my own Trails & Rails blog.
Although there were many
who advocated for a transcontinental railway system starting as early as the
1840’s, one of the earlier promoters of the enterprise was an engineer who
dreamed of crossing the Sierra Nevada Mountains, one of the steepest, most
difficult mountain ranges in the United States. He may be credited with getting
the ball rolling in California years before anything substantial had been
organized and put into motion in the East.
T. D. Judah promotes a National
Railroad and Organizes the Central Pacific.
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| Theodore D. Judah |
Congress was in a
gridlock, but the dream of a Transcontinental Railroad lived on through the
efforts of private enterprise. In 1854, skilled engineer, Theodore D. Judah,
left his secure job in the East and moved to Sacramento, California, to pursue
his dream of locating a route over the Sierra Nevada range for a
Transcontinental Railroad. He believed that it was “the most magnificent
project ever conceived,” and he was obsessed with bringing it to fruition. He
took a job as chief engineer for the Sacramento Valley Railroad and, as a
result of his skill and engineering, the first railroad west of the Mississippi
was operating to the Placer mines in February 1856.
Theodore Dehone Judah was born in 1826 in Bridgeport, Connecticut, the son of Mary (Reece) and The Rev. Henry Raymond Judah, an Episcopal clergyman. After his family moved to Troy, New York, Judah studied engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
At age 21 Judah married Anne Pierce on May 10, 1847. Theirs was the first wedding in the then new St James Episcopal Church of Greenfield, Massachusetts.
After the Sacramento Valley Railroad, Judah resigned in order to devote full time to realizing his dream. Almost everything he did from then until the day of his death was for the great Continental Pacific Railway, and it was all done at his own expense. Judah knew that only the federal government had the resources to finance such an ambitious venture, and in 1856, he and his wife, Anna, made the first of four trips east to solicit federal support. In 1857, he wrote a pamphlet entitled A Practical Plan for Building the Pacific Railroad and distributed it to every member of Congress. He urged them to donate alternate sections of land to help finance the enterprise. The legislators were unable to reach consensus, and Judah return to California without success.
Although some called him
“Crazy Judah,” he did not abandon his dream. On October 28th, 1859, he and Anna
sailed to Panama and then continued to cross the Isthmus by land on their third
trip to the East. On December 6th, Judah held an interview with President James
Buchanan. The president was in favor of the Pacific Railroad, but Congress was
still not behind the project. Theodore and Anna had brought charts, maps, ore
samples, and fossils that had been gathered on their Sierra expeditions. With
these, they opened a Pacific Railway Museum on Capitol Hill. However, the
legislators doubted that a railroad could ever cross the formidable Sierra.
As
the chief engineer of the Central Pacific Railroad (CPRR), Judah surveyed the
route over the Sierra Nevada along which the railroad was to be built during
the 1860s. Failing to raise funds for the project in San Francisco, he
succeeded in signing up four Sacramento merchants, known as the "Big Four."
The Big Four
 |
| The Big Four of the Central Pacific Railroad Company of California: Leland Stanford, Collis Huntington, Charles Crocker, and Mark Hopkins |
"The Big Four" was the name popularly given to the famous and influential businessmen, philanthropists and railroad tycoons who built the Central Pacific Railroad, (C.P.R.R.), which formed the western portion through the Sierra Nevada and the Rocky Mountains. Composed of Leland Stanford, (1824–1893), Collis Potter Huntington, (1821–1900), Mark Hopkins (1813–1878), and Charles Crocker, (1822–1888), the four themselves personally preferred to be known as "The Associates." With T. D. Judah as their primary motivator and chief engineer, they managed financing and construction of the CPRR.
Realizing that they needed more detailed information to sway Congress to their cause, Theodore and Anna returned to California. Under Judah's direction, four parties of engineers went into the Sierra early in 1861 to survey an exact route over the mountains. Part of the road followed the old Donner Trail and continued over Donner Pass. Judah used the surveyors’ reports to solicit local funding for the incorporation of the Central Pacific Railroad of California. He interested the “Big Four,” Leland Stanford, Collis P. Huntington, Mark Hopkins, and Charles Crocker in the project. In April 1861, against the advice of friends, the four partners threw their entire resources and personal credit into the Central Pacific.
Leland Stanford, with a
law degree and his new bride, Jane, had followed his adventurous inclinations
to the West and settled in California in 1852. There he became a dealer in
groceries and provisions. Today he is known for Stanford University, which was
named for his son, Leland Stanford, Jr. Collis P. Huntington and Mark Hopkins
were partners in a large and thriving hardware business in Sacramento.
Huntington ultimately bore the responsibility of obtaining financing. He is
known today for the Huntington Library in San Marino, California. Charles
Crocker and his brother, Edward, were prosperous dry goods merchants. The Crocker
National Bank of San Francisco is part of their legacy.
For the Central Pacific Railroad, Stanford was president; Huntington, vice president; Hopkins, treasurer; Judah, chief engineer; and Crocker, general superintendent of construction. Free enterprise had provided start-up funds for the fledgling company, but the railroad could not be built without land grants and subsidies from the federal government.
 |
| Charles Nordhoff |
Charles Nordhoff wrote a handbook in 1882 titled California—for Health, Pleasure and Residence—a handbook for travelers and settlers. This history originally appeared in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine in 1872. He used the wordy and effusive language style of the day, but offered some interesting insights into the formation and operation of the Central Pacific Railroad:
The story of the building of the Central Pacific
Railroad is one of the most remarkable examples of the dauntless spirit of
American enterprise. The men who built it were merchants, who probably knew no
more about building railroads, when they had past middle age and attained a
respectable commence competence by trade, than a Colusa Pike knows about Greek.
Huntington and Hopkins were hardware merchants. Stanford was at one time or a
wholesale dealer in groceries, the later governor of the state; the two
Crockers were dry goods men. These five, all at or past middle age, all living
in Sacramento, then an insignificant interior town of California, believing in
each other, believing that the railroad must be built, and finding no one else
ready to undertake it, put their hands and heads and their means to the great
work, and carried it through.
Mr. Nordhoff considered there to be five men, as he included Edward Crocker, brother to Charles, who was co-owner of the family retail business. Evidently, Edward minded the store while Charles was the one mostly involved with the railroad venture. Charles Nordhoff, again:
Moreover, you are to remember that these five
Sacramento merchants, who undertook to build a railroad through eight hundred
miles of an almost uninhabited country, over mountains and across an alkali
desert, were totally unknown to the great money world; that their project was
pronounced impractical by engineers of reputation testifying before legislative
committees; that it was opposed and ridiculed at every step by the moneyed men
of San Francisco; that even in their own neighborhood they were thought sure to
fail; and a “Dutch Flat Swindle,” as their project was called, was caricatured,
written down in pamphlets, abused in newspapers, spoken against by politicians,
denounced by capitalist, and for a long time held in such ill repute that it was
more than a banker's character for prudence was worth to connect himself with
it, even by subscribing for its stock.
Everybody knows what is the common fate in this
country of railroad projectors. A few sanguine and public-spirited men procure
a charter, make up a company, subscribe for the stock, drag all their friends
in, get the preliminary surveys made, begin the work—and then break down; and
two or three capitalist, who have been quietly waiting for this foreseen
conclusion-- foreseen by them, I mean—thereupon step in, buy the valuable wreck
for a song, and build and run and own the road. This is a business in itself.
Dozens of men have made millions apiece by this process, which is perfectly
legitimate; for, as the French say, in order to succeed you must be successful;
or, as we say in this country, to the victors belong the spoils.
The
“Big Four” refused to be caught in that trap. They were businessmen who had
built up their wealth using sound fiscal management. They were not playing at
building a railroad for the glory and prestige; they understood the importance
of having a means of transporting people and goods across the country for the
sake of building up California and the businesses in that state. However, they,
along with Judah, realized they needed government backing for a project of that
size.
Eventually, T. D. Judah
and the Big Four of California received enough of what they needed to get the
project started. Mr. Nordhoff again:
 |
| Theodore Judah monument, Sacramento |
Unfortunately, Theodore Judah lived only long enough to see construction begin on the railroad to which he had been so devoted. He contracted malaria while crossing the Isthmus of Panama while traveling to New York to seek alternative financing to buy out the Big Four investors. He died in New York City on November 2, 1863. Anna took his body back to Greenfield, Massachusetts, where he was buried in the Pierce family plot in the Federal Street Cemetery.
Although it does not involve the Transcontinental Railroad directly, the nearest Transcontinental Railroad rail connection to the locality in the series, The Widows of Wildcat Ridge, is in Evanston, Wyoming. My book, Diantha, is now available on Amazon in both ebook format and print. Please CLICK HERE to access the book description and purchase link.
Sources:
Museum
Memories, Volume 1
(Salt Lake City, Utah: International Daughters of Utah Pioneers, 2009), Pgs. 398-401.
Nordhoff, Charles, The Central Pacific Railroad,
(Silverthorne, Colorado: Vista Books, 2008) originally published in 1882 by
Charles Nordhoff.
Wikipedia
(First posted on Sweethearts of the West blog on May 30, 2019)
(First posted on Sweethearts of the West blog on May 30, 2019)
Transcontinental Railroads and Construction Trains
As part of my ongoing series of posts to celebrate the sesquicentennial
celebration of the building of the Transcontinental Railroad, I have been
spending hours transcribing what I consider interesting information. I have
learned bits and pieces about the living conditions of the men who actually did
the labor. However, I ran across a description of the Union Pacific dining car
which really caught my eye. Here is what I have learned about the construction
train and living conditions for both the Central Pacific Railroad and the Union
Pacific Railroad.
 |
| Casement Brothers Construction Train for the UPRR with three engins |
Everything the railroads needed had to be hauled to the
worksite. The Central Pacific Railroad needed to receive its supplies from the
east, first by steamship around the Horn, and then by wagon or railroad. The
Union Pacific needed many of its supplies from back east. Until there was a
railroad bridge across the Missouri River, they needed to be brought up by boat
to Omaha, Nebraska. These supplies were stored on the construction trains that
traveled with the crews involved in constructing the railroads.
Central
Pacific Railroad Construction Trains and Camps:
The CPRR paid its Chinese laborers less than either
railroad paid its workers of European descent. In addition, the Chinese were
required to provide their own food.
 |
| Chinese Construction Camp and Sleeping Cars |
Instead of the regular pay of $45 a month plus food for Western
laborers, the Asians were paid $30 to $35 a month, and they had to pay for their own food. Chinese
were divided into groups of 30 men. Each group selected a leader who received
all wages and bought group provisions. The Chinese workers are credited for
saving $20 a month. Every night before supper, the Chinese workmen enjoyed hot
baths in used powder kegs. Warm tea was available at the work site (Kraus
1969b:41).
Purchasing their own food proved to be a benefit in many
ways for the Chinese. They bought from Chinese merchants in San Francisco’s
Chinatown. Their diet consisted of rice and a wide variety of fruits and
vegetables. Unlike the Western workers who ate a diet of primarily beef,
potatoes, beans and coffee, they tended to stay healthy and avoided many of the
diseases that plagued the Westerners. Also, they never drank water straight
from a stream, lake for pool (think buffalo bathroom, or drinking fountain with
animal slobbers). They always boiled water to make tea to drink. In fact, some
Chinese workers had as their sole duty to make the tea and carry it in buckets
for the other workers to drink on the worksite.
Union
Pacific Construction Trains and Camps:
Unlike the Chinese, the Westerners were a motley and grungy bunch.
They bathed only when they were near enough to the river to make it possible,
and they almost never washed their clothes. They lived at the end of the track
in boarding cars and tents that were moved forward very few days. The boarding
cars were 85 ft long and contained tiers of 144 bunks three deep.
Some men slept under and over the cars for better
ventilation and relief from lice and bedbugs. One car contained an office and a
kitchen, and another served as the mess hall. Stacked in the ceilings of the
cars was a veritable arsenal of 1000 rifles. The immense train was powered by
two engines, 117 and 119. The men were well organized and operated with
military-like discipline and precision, since the chief of nearly every unit
was a former military officer.
The Union Pacific used this large work train that was a
combination of factory, hotel, restaurant, and administrative center. It's more
than 20 cars, some of them oversized and packed with heavy equipment, required both
locomotives to keep them moving. Some cars were divided into offices, store
rooms, and shops for blacksmiths, carpenters, and saddler's. Real hands boarded
in huge sleeping cars packed with, and were fed in a massive dining car.
Track workers awoke to the sound of an alarm Bell at 5:30
a.m. About 125 men at a time could eat breakfast at a single table that ran all
the way down the length of the 75 foot long dining car.
A reporter in 1867 wrote of watching the staff rushing
around the kitchen car to make breakfast for the crew. “Cooks with paper turbans,
and waiters with gunny sack aprons, are flying busily around.” Steaks broiled
on three gigantic stoves alongside steaming “great coppers of coffee”. Bread
was baked “by the wagonload”. Potatoes and onions were served as well. The
kitchen car shared space with a food store room and an engineering office.
Quarters of beef from freshly-slaughtered cattle covered the outside of the
car.
About every three feet along the table was a wooden coffee
bucket, and platters of bread and meat. A dozen waiters kept the coffee buckets
and platters filled. Diners serve themselves by dipping their coffee cups into
the bucket.
Dining etiquette was very basic. Half the men ate along the
side of the long table that was hemmed in by the wall. When a diner was ready
to leave, he stuck his foot across the table and climbed over it to get out. “As
long as he doesn't put his foot into somebody else's breakfast”, wrote a
reporter, “it is all right”.
Moving west with the railroad crew was a carnival of
saloons, brothels, and gambling dens. Each day the proprietors of the tents and
shanties that had their businesses moved and set up again a bit further down
the line. The moving town created the expression “Hell on Wheels”.
The prime attraction of Hell on Wheels was “the Big Tent”.
This giant portable Saloon was 40 feet across and 100 feet long. Its lumber
frame came with a plank floor and a canvas roof.
If you walked into the Big Tent, on the right you'd see “a
splendid bar, with every variety of liquor and cigars, with cut glass goblets,
ice pictures, splendid mirrors, and pictures rivaling those of our Eastern
cities.” In the back of the tent was the dance floor. There was always music,
with a brass band or a string band playing on a raised platform near the door.
The rest of the Big Tent was filled with gaming tables, where track workers
spent much of their wages on Faro, Monte, the fortune wheels, and rondo-coolo,
a game played by rolling numbered balls on a billiard table.
 |
| UPRR Construction Train sits on Devils Gate Bridge in Utah |
Working on the Transcontinental Railroad was hard work. For
the Westerners, at least, it was an excellent-paying job for the time. Living
on the Transcontinental construction trains and visiting the camps was quite a
ride.
My most
recent book, Virginia’s Vocation, is now available on Amazon. In
1859, when Virginia, escorted by her older brother, Jefferson, travel from
Missouri to Ohio, the train that had almost reached St. Joseph, Missouri was
the most westerly point served by a railroad east of the Missouri River. When
the Union Pacific Railroad construction began, supplies from the east still
needed to be brought to Omaha up the Missouri River due to the lack of a
railroad bridge across the river.
Sources:
https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/blm/ut/8/sec1.htm
“Linked
by the Golden Spike: Building the Union Pacific and Central Pacific Railroads”;
History of Railroads (Moorshead Magazines, Ltd.:Toronto, ON, Canada
& Niagara Falls, NY, United States, 2013) pages 16-17, 19.
Museum Memories, Volume 1
(Salt Lake City, Utah: International Daughters of Utah Pioneers, 2009), Pg. 412.
(This post was first published on the Cowboy Kisses blog on June 28, 2019)
Early Challenges of the Central Pacific Railroad
The Central Pacific
Railroad was one of the most expensive to build in the world. Its engineers,
Montague and Gray, would have been famous all over the world had they
constructed a road this difficult in Europe. They had not only to build a road
through an almost inaccessible country, but when it was completed they had the additional
challenge of running trains over it at all seasons. You will see little of the
costly and solid snow sheds, through which you pass mostly by night, and, which
are now being roofed with iron; you will not see at all, perhaps, the ponderous
snow plows, of various patterns, some to push the snow off on one side, some on
the other, down a precipice; others made merely to fling it off the tracks on
the plains; and behind which, during the winter, and often ate heavy engines
were harnessed to “buck” the snow, and throw it from 2,260 feet away.
Charles
Nordhoffm, 1882
Following passage of the Pacific Railroad Act, the first shovel
full of earth was turned by the Central Pacific on January 8, 1863.
Construction
of the Central Pacific Railroad was financed primarily by 30-year, 6% U.S.
government bonds authorized by Sec. 5 of the Pacific Railroad Act of 1862. They
were issued at the rate of $16,000 ($265,000 in 2017 dollars) per mile of
tracked grade completed west of the designated base of the Sierra Nevada range
near Roseville, CA where California state geologist Josiah Whitney had
determined were the geologic start of the Sierras' foothills. Sec. 11 of the
Act also provided that the issuance of bonds "shall be treble the number
per mile" (to $48,000) for tracked grade completed over and within the two
mountain ranges (but limited to a total of 300 miles (480 km) at this
rate), and "doubled" (to $32,000) per mile of completed grade laid
between the two mountain ranges. The U.S. Government Bonds, which constituted a
lien upon the railroads and all their fixtures, were repaid in full (and with
interest) by the company as and when they became due.
The Central Pacific started with the first thirty-one miles
traveling east from Sacramento.
The first locomotive, Governor
Stanford, went into service on November 10. It cost $13,688 and was more
than ten feet tall and fifty feet long. With a full load of wood and water, it
weighed forty-six tons and was the biggest man-made thing in California. The
first thirty-one miles of railroad went into operation on June 10, 1864.
The cost of building the first thirty-one miles was nearly $3,000,000,
and the Central Pacific soon face serious financial difficulties. Under the
terms of the Railroad Act, forty miles of completed road were required before
federal bonds could be accessed, and the state of California had not paid what
it had pledge. Private funds were exhausted do to inflated prices for equipment
and the cost of transporting it to California during wartime. Shipping was
especially burdensome, as all of the supplies, ties, and rolling equipment had
to be shipped 15,000 miles around Cape Horn from the East Coast, of voyage of
eight to ten months. At times thirty ships at once were on the high seas filled
with railroad equipment for the Central Pacific.
Using their personal resources, the Big Four purchased and transported
enough iron and rolling stock around Cape Horn to build seventy miles of road. Not
only did the Big Four in California—Leland Stanford, C. P. Huntington, Charles
Walker and mark Hopkins—need to raise money for the railroad, they were
required to do so during wartime. Everything—the iron, the spikes, the tools to
dig, the powder to blast, the locomotives, the cars, the machinery—had to be
shipped from New York around Cape Horn, to make an expensive and hazardous eight
months voyage, before it could be landed in San Francisco, From there it needed
to be reshipped by river 120 miles to Sacramento.
 |
| Before the rails built to the San Francisco Bay, railroad supplies were shipped up river to Sacramento. |
From Charles Nordhoff again:
“And now came the severest test of the courage and endurance of
the men at 54 K Street [location of the first office for the CPRR]. Eleven
months passed over before they could get the Government bonds for the completed
and accepted part of the line; these bonds in the meantime had gone down from
one and a half percent, premium in gold, where they stood when the charter was
accepted, as low as thirty-nine cents for the dollar. Railroad iron in the
same token went up from $50 to $135 per ton. All other materials, locomotives, etc., rose in the same proportion; insurance for the eight or nine months’ voyage around
Cape Horn, which every pound of the material of the road bed and running stock
had to make, rose from two and a half to ten percent, by reason of the rebel cruisers;
freights from $18 to $45 per ton.
“Intent on keeping down the interest account, the five men at 54 K
Street asked the State to pay for twenty years the interest on a million and a
half of bonds, in exchange for which they gave a valuable granite quarry,
guaranteed free transportation of all stone from it for the public buildings of
the State, and also free transportation over their line of all state troops,
criminals, lunatics, and paupers. This was done. Then Sacramento and some of
the counties were asked to exchange their bonds for the stock of the company,
and this was done by a popular vote. But most of these contracts had to be
enforced afterwards in the courts.
 |
| Early headquarters for the CPRR |
“Meantime the money was used up. The business was from the first
kept rigidly under control; every contract was made terminable at the option of
the company; every hand employed was paid off monthly; and in reading over some
old contracts I came upon a clause specifically obliging the contractors to
keep liquor out of the camps. When Huntington, after long and trying labors in
New York, returned to Sacramento, he found the treasure-chest so low that it
was necessary to diminish the laboring force, or at once raised more means. “Huntington
and Hopkins,” said he, “can, out of their own means, pay five hundred men
during a year; how many can each of you keep on the line?” The five men (the
fifth was Crocker’s brother) agreed in council at 54 K Street that out of their
own private fortunes they would maintain and pay eight hundred men during a
year on the road.
“Governor Leland Stanford then persuaded the California
legislature to issue state bonds at the rate of $10,000 a mile after the
completion of specified amounts of track.”
Many expressed doubts that the financially strapped railroad would
never be completed by four inexperienced country merchants who were lacking money,
materials, and an adequate workforce. Work never came to a complete stop, but
there were days on end when there was not one cent in the company's treasury.
It was then that the Central Pacific made an appeal for local bonding. The
voters of three counties responded favorably, but it was well into 1865 before
bonding was approved. That spring the forty-mile mark was passed, federal bonds
were turned into cash, and the CP was ready to battle the Sierra. But the delay
in financing had prevented the company from taking advantage of the mild winter
of 1864-65.
 |
| Donner Summit comparison-difference between mild winter and one not so much |
During the winter of 1866-67, the fight to overcome the Sierra
began in earnest. All that was known of the region discouraged such a venture.
Mountain roads were so steep that covered wagons had to be lowered down by
ropes. The grading alone would cost more than $100,000 per mile, and they would
need to drill fifteen tunnels through the solid granite: five on the west
slope, one at the summit, and nine in the east.
Picks and shovels, wheelbarrows, black powder, and one horse dump
carts were what was available for grading at the time. Over one thousand men
were sent into the Sierra Nevada with hand axes and saws to harvest the 625,000
feet of lumber that were required daily, and several sawmills were built to process
the logs.
Compared with their Eastern counterpart, very different country
confronted the builders and operators of the Central Pacific. Even their
Terminus on the west coast offered challenges for the new railroad.
Another great shortage the Central Pacific Railroad faced was
labor. California, thinly populated, with wages very high at that time, could
not supply the force needed since most potential workman already had jobs. Like
materials, men had to be obtained from a great distance. Laborers were obtained
from New York, and from the lower country. Europe, the usual source of cheap
labor from its supply of unemployed Irish, German, and other immigrants, was almost
halfway around the world. Instead of turning east to look for their workforce,
Charles Crocker, the man in charge of construction, looked to the west. More on
that next blog post.
Although it does not involve the Transcontinental
Railroad directly, the nearest Transcontinental Railroad rail connection to the
locality in the series, The Widows of Wildcat Ridge, is in Evanston, Wyoming. Both
of my books in that series, Nissa and Diantha, are now
available on Amazon in both ebook format and print. Please CLICK HERE to access the book
description and purchase link for Nissa,
and CLICK HERE for Diantha.
Sources:
The Central Pacific Railroad, by Charles Nordhoff, 1882; (Silverthorne,
Colorado: Vista books, 2008), page 11, 29-30
Museum Memories, Volume 1
(Salt Lake City, Utah: International Daughters of Utah Pioneers, 2009), Pgs.
402-4.
Wikipedia
(This post was originally published on the Sweethearts of the West blog on July 1, 2019)
Chinese Railroad Workers & the Sierra Nevada Mountains
Charles Crocker took charge of the Central Pacific
Railroad operation with fearless optimism. He was merchant, not a railroad man,
so he learned railroad construction by doing it. Getting laborers proved to be difficult.
Most of the men who were hired worked for a grubstake for gold mining, then walked
off the job as soon as they got paid. Crocker then considered hiring Chinese
laborers, although his partners and foremen were skeptical. The Chinese men
were small—about four feet, 10 inches tall and weighing only about 120 pounds—and
it was believed they were not strong enough to do the work.
At that time there were about sixty thousand Chinese in
California. Most were young single men who had come to America for economic opportunity.
Many had emigrated in response to pamphlets put out by Chinese merchants
residing in San Francisco. The merchant companies paid the men's passage and
were repaid with a percentage of each man's earnings. The company honored its
contract to send the immigrants home free of charge if they became ill. In case
of death, they sent the person's bones home for burial.
 |
| Ravine Bridge near Colfax photo by Alfred A. Hart, ctsy Stanford Special Collections |
By the end of 1866, Crocker had eight thousand Orientals
and about two thousand Caucasians in his employ. The Central Pacific paid $30
per month to the Chinese, which was considered a good wage even though the men
had to buy their own food. The Chinese proved to be outstanding workers. They
excelled at teamwork, took few breaks, and became skilled at blasting. Caucasians
monopolized the skilled work such as trestling, masonry, and laying rails; and
they held the supervisory positions. The Chinese did the grading, made cuts and
fills, felled trees, and did the arduous and dangerous work of blasting.
 |
| Cape Horn overlooking the American River by Alfred A. Hart, ctsy Stanford Special Collections |
Beginning in the early summer of 1865, the Chinese
workers began construction on one of the most feared stretches of the route.
Nicknamed “Cape Horn,” it ran three miles along the precipitous gorge on the
North Fork of the American River. The slope was at an angle of seventy-five
degrees, and the tracks were to be laid along the mountainside between twelve
and twenty-two hundred feet above the river. There was not even a mountain goat
path for the workers to stand on while they blasted rock cuts on the sheer
cliffs. Many engineers did not think it could be done.
Workers were lowered over the rim in chairs to place
the black powder, and then fix and light the fuses. They then yelled do the men
above to pull them up to relative safety. The Chinese workers informed their foreman
that they had learned a better way from their ancestors who had built the
fortresses in the Yangtze gorges. They wove waist-high baskets with 4 eyelets
at the top, similar to the ones that their progenitors had used. Ropes ran from
the eyelets to a central cable.
 |
| Locomotive on finished Cape Horn track by Alfred A. Hart, ctsy Stanford Special Collections |
The Chinese workmen, hanging in their baskets, were
much safer than they had been while perched in those precarious chairs. Due to
the skill and dedication, the roadbed and track around Cape Horn were completed
in the spring of 1866, much sooner than had been anticipated. But hundreds of barrels
of black powder were ignited daily, and there were accidents. The Central
Pacific did not record Chinese casualties, so the number of deaths is not known.
From this dangerous operation came the phrase, “not a Chinaman's chance.”
 |
| Donner Pass terrain, typical of the Sierra Nevada Mountains |
Clearing the roadbed was almost as bad as blasting on
Cape Horn. Huge trees and other obstructions had to be removed from a twenty-five-foot
path on each side of the road bed. One gang of three hundred men spent ten full
workdays clearing a single mile of right-of-way. After the trees were hauled to
the sawmills, the stumps had to be blasted from the soil. Ten barrels of
blasting powder were often required to remove a single stump.
At Donner Summit, it took more than a year to cut the 1,659-foot
tunnel—more than a quarter mile—through solid granite and then bring the track
down the steep escarpment of the east slope in a meandering route past Donner
Lake. From there, getting the line from Truckee to present-day Reno would be
relatively easy since the line essentially followed the Truckee River and
continued into the Nevada desert with its comparatively flat topography.
The east portal of
Tunnel 6 and wagon road from Tunnel 7, photo by Alfred A. Hart, courtesy
Department of Special Collections/Stanford University Libraries
However, Tunnel 6 proved be extremely difficult. It was
one of 15 tunnels the Central Pacific used to conquer the Sierra and was by far
the most challenging. It was all done by hand. The Chinese worked in teams of
three, with one man holding the drill, while the other two workers swung
hammers. Once a sufficiently sized hole was augered out, a man would fill it
with blasting powder, light a fuse and hope for the best.
Tunnel 6 through
Donner Summit, photo by Alfred A. Hart, courtesy Department of Special
Collections/Stanford University Libraries
 |
| Snow on Donner Summit May 31, 2019 |
Progress was so
slow that the executives decided to try using nitroglycerin, which was more
powerful and less expensive than blasting powder. They found it to be safe if a
fresh amount was manufactured each day. Two thousand blasts were made in the
summit tunnel within less than two months, and not a single accident occurred.
Summer
snow drifts on Donner Summit during railroad construction, photo
by Alfred A. Hart, courtesy Department of Special Collections/Stanford
University Libraries
The severe
winter of 1865-66 and 1866-67 called for superhuman courage to keep things
going. There were forty-four separate storms during the winter of 1866-67. The
snowpack was eighteen feet deep at the summit, and the only work possible was
in the tunnels. There were accidents of all kinds, mainly from blasting powder.
Sometimes the heavy explosions started avalanches, and entire camps of workmen
were buried alive. In order to travel to and from the granite tunnels, the
Chinese laborers dug snow tunnels from fifty to five hundred feet long. Windows
and air shafts were bored through the snow walls, and the men lived in these labyrinths
all winter.
 |
| Railroad tracks next to Truckee River, May 31, 2019 |
There was only
light snow over the summit in Truckee Canyon, and Crocker was anxious to keep
his men working throughout the winter. From there they could grade up the eastern
face of the Sierra and also westward toward Nevada. There was only one major
problem. How would they transport the necessary rolling stock and equipment
over the summit? Crocker conceived and directed the tremendous undertaking of sledding
three locomotive, forty cars, and enough material for forty miles of track on
torturous mountain trails up over the summit and down into Truckee Canyon. This
extraordinary feat was accomplished by Chinese workers and ox teams.
A
locomotive over the Truckee River, photo by Alfred A. Hart, courtesy
Department of Special Collections/Stanford University Libraries
The first
locomotive from Truckee crossed the California and Nevada state line on
December 13, 1867. By the end of the year, only one difficult section near the
summit remained to be built. The tough work in solid rock above Donner Lake was
completed on June 15, 1868, which ended the difficult work in the Sierra
Nevada Mountains.
Emigrant Gap Tunnel and Snow Shed, photo by Alfred A. Hart, courtesy
Department of Special Collections/Stanford University Libraries
Because of the problems the builders encountered while
building the railroad, they knew the problem of heavy snows must be solved
before trains could be operated year-round. They built forty miles of sheds,
forming nearly a solid covering over the tracks. One railroader remarked, “I've
railroaded all over the world, but this is the first time I've ever railroaded
in a barn.” Gradually, as powerful rotary snow plows and improved snow fighting
methods were developed, the snow-shed mileage was reduced. In 1955, less than
six miles remained.
 |
| Snow Sheds still visible on railroad tracks today |
Although my novel, Escape from Gold Mountain, does not
take place during the building of the Transcontinental Railroad, it is set on
the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains and does have a Chinese
heroine. Inspired by true events that took place in 1884-85, I hope you will
enjoy reading this story about a woman from an American immigrant group that is
often overlooked. Her situation was typical of many of the Chinese women to
came to the United States in the nineteenth century.
Escapefrom Gold Mountain is currently on pre-order at a
special sale price that will end the day after the book is released. PLEASE CLICK HERE for the book
description and purchase link.
Sources:
Museum Memories, Volume 1 (Salt Lake City, Utah: International Daughters of
Utah Pioneers, 2009), Pgs. 404-407.http://tahoequarterly.com/summer-2019/surmounting-the-sierra
https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2019/05/07/chinese-transcontinental-railroad-ghosts-of-gold-mountain-gordon-chang
(Originally published on the Sweethearts of the West blog on July 30, 2019)
Creation of the Union Pacific Railroad
Unlike the Central Pacific, which was incorporated by
private investors in 1861, men who risked their personal fortunes, the Union
Pacific Railroad Company came into existence as a direct result of the 1862
Pacific Railroad Act. The name was probably inspired by the fact that Congress
was sponsoring the Pacific Railway and believed that the Union (remember, this act was passed during the Civil War) would be
strengthened by the railroad. The Railroad Act empowered 163 men to organize
the company and appoint directors.
 |
| Pres. Abraham Lincoln and creating the Pacific Railway Act of 1862 |
Financial incentives were quite impressive. For the
roughest stretches of track in the western mountains, the builders were granted
up to 6400 Acres of public land and $48,000 in government bonds for every mile
of track. Lower, but still substantial, land grants came with each mile of
track on easier sections.
During a meeting held early in September 1862, the
Union Pacific board of directors issued stock and advertised it for sale. Unfortunately, it was widely believed that the company was doomed to failure. Only 45
shares were sold to eleven men of foresight. Brigham Young, the biggest buyer, was
the only one who paid in full for his 5 shares, making him the first stockholder
in good standing and earning him a seat on the board of directors.
 |
| Thomas C. Durant, UPRR Vice President |
On November 17th, UP Vice President Thomas C. Durant convinced President Lincoln to
move the eastern terminus to Omaha, Nebraska, instead of Council Bluffs, Iowa,
making it unnecessary to wait until a bridge could be constructed over the
Missouri River. Durant believed that it was urgent to get the project going since the
Central Pacific had held is groundbreaking ceremony eleven months earlier. He
scheduled ground-breaking for the Union Pacific on December 2, 1863. On the
same day, Brigham Young telegraphed the following message to President Lincoln:
“Let the hands of the honest be united to aid the great national improvement.”
 |
| Grenville Dodge, Chief Engineer |
No rails were laid until July, 1865, after the end of
the Civil War. Construction really began in earnest in 1866. Two former Union
Generals oversaw the work. Jack Casement was a superintendent of construction,
and Grenville Dodge was appointed as chief engineer. For the Union Pacific work
crews, access to the east coast brought in European immigrant laborers to add
to the Civil War veterans and former slaves.
 | |
| John S. "Jack" Casement |
While the survey team was busy in the west, the board
of directors undertook the organization of the Union Pacific Railroad. At the meeting of
stockholders on October 9, 1863, John A. Dix was elected president. Dr. Thomas
C. Durant was chosen as vice-president, but he was the real leader of the
corporation. He threw all of his constructive genius and
fortune into the great national enterprise.
From Omaha, the Union Pacific's route crossed the
Nebraska territory, touched the Colorado territory, and continued into the
territories of Wyoming and Utah, running nearly 1,100 miles. Hundreds of miles
of their route ran across flat plains that presented no engineering problems.
 |
| Jack Casement overseeing building the Union Pacific RR |
The Union Pacific as well as the Central Pacific each
had several stages of work going on simultaneously. Surveyors went ahead to map
the paths of the Rails. Following them were crews assigned to build bridges,
culverts, or tunnels. Next were the graders, who shaped the track bed. Except
when blasting was necessary, the work was done by hand with laborers using
picks, shovels, and wheelbarrows. Other crews cut timber for lumber, ties, or
fuel.
Building the tracks was done with a combination of hand
labor and assembly line positions. Fifty teams of mules hauled ties (often called
"sleepers" back then) for laborers, who placed the ties every two feet
along the rail bed. To finish track mileage as quickly as possible, the ties
were planted directly onto the ground, and gravel for ballast was added later.
Following the tie carriers were other men who dropped spikes and plates for
fastening the rails.
 |
| Horse and UPRR Construction Train |
“Blind Tom,” a sightless horse became famous in the
newspapers. He drew countless thousands of rails in a flat car to the head of the track being laid. The Union Pacific's rails were 28 ft long and weighed 700 pounds apiece.
Every fifteen seconds, two teams of five “ironmen” each picked up a rail from
the flatcar, and then they walked to the end of the track. When the foreman shouted “Down!”,
they dropped the rail on to the ties. As the ironmen walked back for another
rail, other workers straighten the rails and spiked them into place.
Working at top speed, the crews could lay over 100 feet
of track per minute. It took less than one hour to lay a mile of track. In
practice, this sort of speed could not be maintained for long. It was
impossible to bring enough rails and ties for the work on the single line of
functioning track. Each mile of track required about 380 rails, 2600 ties, and
10,000 spikes.
 |
| UPRR Workers laying track |
This post on the first Transcontinental Railroad is a continuation of my series of posts across
three blogs to which I contribute. All of them will be compiled on my own
Trails & Rails blog on a Transcontinental Railroad page you may access by CLICKING
HERE. (BTW, the train in the Trails & Rails blog banner image was taken at the Ogden Union Station near Promontory Point where the Union Pacific and Central Pacific Railroads joined.)
I’m very excited about my upcoming release, Escape from Gold Mountain,
which is now on ebook preorder at both Amazon and Barnes
& Noble. Right now, it is at a sale price of $2.99, but will move
to its regular price on September 5, 2019, the day after it is released on
September 4th. Later in the month, I will disable the Nook version so I may
list the Kindle version on Kindle Unlimited for at least 90 days. The paperback
versions will continue to be offered on both vendors.
“Linked by the Golden
Spike: Building the Union Pacific and Central Pacific Railroads”; History
of Railroads (Moorshead Magazines, Ltd.:Toronto, ON, Canada & Niagara
Falls, NY, United States, 2013) page 14-16.
Museum
Memories, Volume 1
(Salt Lake City, Utah: International Daughters of Utah Pioneers, 2009), Pgs. 408-409.
https://www.uprr.com/aboutup/history/lincoln/lincoln_rr/index.shtml
(Originally published on the Cowboy Kisses blog dated August 23, 2019)
(Originally published on the Cowboy Kisses blog dated August 23, 2019)
The Transcontinental Railroad & Family History
Today
I am telling the story I have about my great-grandfather, Edwin Brown,
regarding his time working on the Transcontinental Railroad.
To
set the stage a little, Brigham Young, the leader of the Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter-day Saints, had been advocating for a railroad to cross the nation
from the time he first started to lead the members of the church to the Great
Salt Lake Valley and points beyond. For more details, read the section about
him in last month’s post by CLICKING HERE.
When
the Union Pacific finally reached Utah, the company began looking for more
railroad workers. They still had the daunting task of cutting a rail bed
through Echo and Weber Canyons. This would require grading and laying track on
steep terrain and blasting three tunnels through the surrounding mountains.
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The
region had just gone through another round of having many of their crops
destroyed by a grasshopper plague. Both money and work was scarce. Many Utah men
welcomed the opportunity to work and earn wages to support their families.
In
spite of its large Chinese workforce, the Central Pacific Railroad also needed
more men as they crossed northern Nevada and approached the Promontory
Mountains. Once they learned that Brigham Young was negotiating with the Union
Pacific Railroad, they also sought “Mormon” laborers. (More details will be in
a future post.)
I
do not know which railroad hired my great-grandfather. Sometimes I get
frustrated with my ancestors because the family histories they left behind are
a little skimpy on details regarding this period in Edwin’s life. My
grandmother, especially, as she became one of the few descendants of those who lived
with and knew people who crossed the plains in covered wagons, did not share
these details when she offered historical information to various publications. All
I know is, Edwin Brown was married to my great-grandmother by 1868 when the two
railroad companies were hiring. They had two small daughters. He lived in a
house on a lot that was part of the farm his older brother, Henry, inherited. Since
Henry needed to stay on the farm to support his widowed mother, underage
siblings, as well as his own wife and children, Edwin left to work for the
railroad.
While
most of the men from Utah started for home on May 8, 1869 when the two rail
lines were complete and ready to be joined—they had crops to plant and families
to see to—Edwin was among those rail workers who stayed to witness the Golden
Spike ceremony.
What
Grandmother Goldie left me was a folksy, human interest story that does not
tell much about the railroad work her father did. However, it does shine a bit
of light on the physical and social conditions under which these men worked.
Here it is:
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| Edwin Brown in his early 60's |
“When
he left, he had beautiful black curly hair.
And his little old grandmother lived with him. And she made him promise that he would bring
those beautiful black curls home to her….And, so, when the men got to working
on the railroad, they all neglected themselves and got head lice and body lice
and anything else.
“But
my dad didn’t. Every time, as they went
along working and they came to a ditch or a creek, my dad went out and took a
bath and washed his head. He didn’t have
body lice and head lice. And he wouldn’t
allow anyone who did to stay in his tent.
And, the other men were jealous and kept after him. They shaved their heads….But, my dad, he had
his pretty long black hair…curled...he was going to bring them back to his
grandmother.
“So,
he never took his gun off. And when he
went to bed, he put his gun right down by his knee. And, the men kept whispering around and
whispering around. He knew there was
something up. All the other men made up
between them that they would catch him in bed when he was asleep…and hold him
down and cut his hair. And sure enough,
they come one night and thought he was asleep in bed. He just got his gun (click) and told ‘em –
you take one step forward and I’ll let you have it.
“And
he brought his pretty black curls home.”
According
to Melvin Miner and June Kasteler, cousins who wrote some of the family
histories available, it was his mother, not his grandmother, to whom Edwin returned
with his curly hair. However,
Edwin’s paternal grandparents, Jonathan Brown and Frances Mary Green Brown,
emigrated from England and both of them died in Salt Lake. Frances Brown was still living at the time
that Edwin worked for the railroad.
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| Workmen at the Golden Spike, or "Last Spike," ceremony |
All
the family histories agree that Edwin was present at the Golden Spike
ceremony. He told his family that if
they look in the pictures that were taken of the event, he is in there
somewhere. Every time I come across a photograph of that event, I scan the
faces looking for a man in the back of the crowd who could be my
great-grandfather.
Author’s
Note: May 10, 1869 is the sesquicentennial of the Golden Spike ceremony joining
the Central Pacific Railroad and the Union Pacific Railroad to create the
Transcontinental Railroad. For the next few months, across all the blogs for
which I write, I will share pieces of this railroad’s history. It has special
meaning for me since one of my ancestors worked on this railroad once it
reached Utah. All of these blog posts will eventually be gathered on a page in
my own Trails and Rails blog.
Sources:
Family history written by Robyn Echols
Histories obtained from International Society of Daughters of Utah Pioneers, specifically, the history submitted by Melvin Miner and June Kasteler
Murray City Corporation, The History of Murray City, Utah, (Salt Lake City, Utah: Stanway/Wheelwright Printing Co.) 1976.
http://cprr.org/Museum/Stewart-Iron_Trail.html
http://www.tcrr.com/
(This post first published on the Sweet Americana Sweethearts blog on June 10, 2019)
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